Paper: Climate change will increase challenge of keeping European buildings cool

6 October 2017

A new paper “Influence of climate change on summer cooling costs and heat stress in urban office buildings” by LSE Cities and VITO looking at Antwerp, Bilbao and London illustrates the challenge in keeping Western-European office buildings comfortable until the end of the twenty-first century without adaptation measures, and the beneficial effect of adequate adjustments. Measures investigated include the introduction of (external) shading and increased night-time ventilation in actively cooled buildings, and the improvements in working conditions in free-running buildings caused by moving workers to cooler locations and splitting workdays in morning and evening shifts.